The South Bank Show

Season 14

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The South Bank Show is a television arts magazine show that was produced by ITV between 1978 and 2010. A new series began on Sky Arts from 27 May 2012. Presented by Melvyn Bragg, the show aims to bring both high art and popular culture to a mass audience.

Where to Watch Season 14

23 Episodes

  • George Michael
    E1
    George Michael
  • Peter Ackroyd on Dickens
    E2
    Peter Ackroyd on Dickens
  • Spike Lee
    E3
    Spike Lee
  • Salman Rushdie
    E4
    Salman Rushdie
  • Roy Lichtenstein
    E5
    Roy LichtensteinIn 1990 Melvyn Bragg interviewed Roy Lichtenstein for The South Bank Show, filming the artist in his studio in New York. Lichtenstein, who died in 1997, was the artist hailed by one newspaper in 1964 as ‘One of the Worst Artists in America Today’ but whose works now fetch tens of millions. In the opening moments of the documentary we see his Torpedo...Los! achieve $5.5 million at auction, a record at the time. Lichtenstein is a man who one would have found very difficult to dislike, with a twinkling innocence and an honesty that is innately watchable. He and Bragg trace the progress of a remarkable career beginning with his famous enlarged comic strip panels and his trademark use of the Benday dot. Lichtenstein also demonstrates his process of enlargement for the cameras and various recognisable techniques of The South Bank Show, such as the artist confronting his work as an overhead projection, are used to good effect. The conversation proceeds to later works, including his keen engagement with art history and the age-old question of what makes art, art. Lichtenstein uses the contemporary imagery of Pop Art, inspired by comic strips and "the tremendous force" of advertising, to make reproductions of famous works by Picasso. Similarly, Monet’s Rouen Cathedral paintings are rendered in a stark, mechanical collage, or "Impressionism by machine". The film also accompanies Lichtenstein as he goes to see some of Picasso’s work at first hand for the first time. It may strike one as odd that the painter would not have gone to see the work of an artist he so greatly admires before, but actually this reflects a prevalent strain of artistic isolationism. As Lichtenstein has earlier acknowledged, "I haven’t lived in the kind of America that I portray." The artist, in fact, comes over as rather a delicate creature of habit -- according to Bragg he "rarely goes out" except to the diner where he and his wife have lunch every day, same time, same table. Similarly, whe
  • Ken Russell on Anton Bruckner
    E6
    Ken Russell on Anton Bruckner
  • Clear Cool Crystal Streams (Irish rock music)
    E7
    Clear Cool Crystal Streams (Irish rock music)
  • John Updike
    E8
    John Updike
  • East German writers
    E9
    East German writers
  • Alan Parker
    E10
    Alan Parker
  • Cameron Mackintosh
    E11
    Cameron Mackintosh
  • Spitting Image
    E12
    Spitting Image
  • The Talis Scholars
    E13
    The Talis Scholars
  • Stan Laurel
    E14
    Stan LaurelA celebration of the English comedian Stan Laurel,the creative genius behind the films of Laurel and Hardy.
  • August Wilson
    E15
    August Wilson
  • Oscar Marzaroli
    E16
    Oscar Marzaroli
  • Anne-Sophie Mutter
    E17
    Anne-Sophie Mutter
  • Bonfire of the Vanities (1991 film)
    E18
    Bonfire of the Vanities (1991 film)
  • Willard White
    E19
    Willard White
  • The Five Blind Boys of Alabama / R.S. Thomas
    E20
    The Five Blind Boys of Alabama / R.S. Thomas
  • Steve Martin
    E21
    Steve Martin
  • Rudolph Nureyev
    E22
    Rudolph Nureyev
  • Kiri Te Kanawa
    E23
    Kiri Te Kanawa

Cast of Season 14

  • Melvyn BraggSelf - Presenter / Writer
  • Gerald FoxProducer
  • David ThomasProducer

 

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